我的父亲一直是个非常手巧的人，也喜欢自己动手做家里的各种活儿，马莎安拉。小时候，他总想让我帮他一起干，我其实并不喜欢，但最终还是学到了很多东西。

My dad has always been a very handy person and loves to take on home projects mashaAllah. When I was young, he would try to get me to help him and I never really enjoyed it, but I still ended up learning a lot.

他早期教给我的一件事是：开始一个项目时，必须确保自己是在一个干净、牢固的基础上工作。比如，如果你想重新粉刷房子的外墙，首先必须清除旧漆，去掉腐朽的木材等等。只有在所有这些准备工作完成之后，你才能真正开始刷漆。你当然可以忽略准备工作，直接把新漆刷在旧东西上，但不久之后，新漆就会开裂、剥落，情况会比以前更糟。

One of the things he taught me early on is that when you start a project, you have to make sure you are working on a clean, solid site. For example, if you want to re-paint the side of your house, you first have to clean off any old paint, take off any rotting wood, etc. Only after all that prep work is done can you actually start painting. You can always just forget the prep work and put new paint on top of the old stuff, but within a short period of time, the new paint will start to crack and peel and things will be even worse than before.

同样的道理也适用于浇筑混凝土或铺设新的露台。第一步至关重要：你必须拆除、拆解，并在必要时摧毁旧结构，清除碎片残渣。只有在场地清空并平整之后，才能建造出坚固、经久耐用的东西。试图在旧结构摇摇欲坠的残骸上建造，是既适得其反又十分愚蠢的：无论最终成品本身建造得多么精良，它都很可能和原来的结构一样摇摇欲坠，容易倒塌和破败。而且，如果你要在原有结构的残骸之上建造，就必须对所依托的基础做出调整和补偿。你不再能按照自己的喜好和需要来建造，而必须建造一个适合并顾及现存结构的东西。

The same principle applies to pouring concrete or installing a new deck. The first step is very crucial. You have to disassemble, deconstruct, and, if needed, destroy the old structure and remove the debris. Only once the site is clear and level, can you build something that is solid and will last in the long run. It would be counterproductive and quite silly to try to build something on the shaky remains of the previous structure because the final product, no matter how well-built it otherwise is, will likely be just as shaky and prone to collapse and dilapidation as the original. Also if you are trying to build on the remains of the original structure, you will have to make adjustments and compensations to accommodate what you are building on. Rather than build something according to your own preferences and needs, you now have to build something which suits and takes into account the extant structure upon which you are building.

这一切都只是一个比喻，用来说明当代乌里玛在应对现代问题的学术工作中所面临的处境。在这个比喻中，旧的油漆或破旧倾颓的建筑，指的是现代主义及其伴随的各种“主义”：自由主义、科学主义、女权主义、世俗主义等等。这些东西需要被彻底拆除、清理干净。因为如果学者在其上建造，即便他所建造的东西质量最高、学识最为深厚，最终的结果仍会是歪斜、不稳，并且随时可能崩塌。但如果将腐朽之物刮除并弃置，留下一块洁净、平整的工地，那么学者便能够建造出真实而持久的杰作，bi idhnillah。

All this is just a metaphor for a situation our contemporary ulama have to deal with in the course of their scholarly work in light of modern issues. In this metaphor, the old paint or the old dilapidated structure is modernism and its concomitant -isms: liberalism, scientism, feminism, secularism, etc. This is the stuff that needs to be dismantled and thoroughly cleaned out because if a scholar builds on this, even if what he builds is of the highest quality and the most sound erudition, the end result is still going to be lopsided, shaky, and liable to collapse. But if the rot is scraped off and discarded, leaving a pristine, level work site, that is when the alim can build a true and lasting masterpiece bi idhnillah.

这就是为什么我们看到先贤们获得了如此多的成功（tawfiq）。他们是在坚实的根基上进行建设的。他们是在前人坚实学术成果的基础上继续建设，而这些成果又都建立在启示以及先知的圣行（Sunnah）ﷺ这一牢不可破的根基之上。正是因此，他们才得以创造出伊斯兰学科这一无与伦比的智识与精神成就的丰碑。

This is why we see so much tawfiq from our scholarly predecessors. They were building on solid ground. They were building on top of the solid scholarship of those before them, all of which was built on the unshakable foundation of revelation and the Prophet’s Sunnah صلى الله عليه وسلم. And that is how they were able to create this unmatched monument of intellectual and spiritual achievement that is the Islamic sciences.

但是，在近代之初，随着穆斯林失去政治权力，欧洲的现代主义哲学逐渐成为全世界乃至穆斯林社会中占主导地位的思想模式，一些话语和学术研究便开始变得被动反应。一时间，学者们不得不回应这些“主义”，或依据它们来表达自己的观点，无论这是出于社会压力、政治压力，还是殖民者和西方霸权其他代理人的公然胁迫。当然，这一切无论有意还是无意，都影响了那些学术研究的内容。结果，其中一些学术成果竟建立在腐朽的根基之上。

But at the dawn of the modern period, as the Muslims lost political power and European modernist philosophy increasingly became the dominant mode of thought around the world and in Muslim societies as well, that’s when some of the discourse and some of the scholarship became reactive. All of a sudden, scholars are having to respond to these -isms and/or write their opinions in light of them, whether due to social pressure or political pressure or even outright coercion by colonizers and other agents of Western hegemony. And of course this — knowingly or unknowingly — affected the content of that scholarship. In effect, some of that scholarship ended up being built on rot.

我们需要清除这些腐败的东西。我们要解构、拆除它，并把那些垃圾丢弃。然后我们就可以重新满怀信心地开始建设，按照我们自己的原则行事，再一次向世界证明：没有任何事物能够比得上这一宗教的宏伟与令人敬畏的壮丽。

We need to clean out the rot. We need to deconstruct and dismantle it and discard the rubbish. Then we can resume building with confidence and on our own terms, once again showing the world that nothing can match the magnificence and awe-inspiring splendor of this deen.